Cisco Cements Next-Gen Strategy

Cisco has big plans for IT, and when the company launches initiatives like EnergyWise or TrustSec, the industry listens. But, at some point, Cisco has to start delivering on those promises. Cisco has started the next phase of its Borderless Networks initiative, the purpose of which is to make computing seamless regardless of location or platform, with new product and feature announcements for Medianet, EnergyWise and TrustSec. Supporting the initiative enhancements are new switches and Integrated Services Routers. Love or hate Cisco, the company has a plan, articulates it well and delivers. Any infrastructure vendor that wants to compete with Cisco is going to have to step up.

It's no secret that Cisco is getting into real-time media in a big way, from streaming video and videoconferencing to unified communications and VoIP. Part of the difficulty for IT is building and managing the network to support real-time services that ride along with all the other data. One pain point is identifying end devices and setting QoS parameters needed to deliver real-time media end to end.